ARLINGTON -- If you are looking for the best way to sum up where the Rangers are this offseason, head over to Texas Live! They'd just love it if you would come visit and have a meal while you are at there -- and stare out at the state-of-the-art stadium being built in the backyard.

It may be starting to resemble a stadium, but mostly it looks like girders and cement and wiring.

It is the offseason of infrastructure.

In that regard, maybe an X-ray image of new manager Chris Woodward would have been a more appropriate introduction Monday than a news conference. Woodward may have the bones for being a good manager and the soul for being a great one, but it would be unfair to think that a 42-year-old, first-time manager isn't something of a construction project, too.

It all just fits where the Rangers are at the moment. They are building something. Something that almost certainly won't be ready until 2021 or 2022.

"We're building something here we're very excited about," general manager Jon Daniels said in wrapping up his introduction of Woodward. "We've got a young position-player core. We've got a wave of young talent coming up through the system, a lot of pitching in that group. We got a number of new faces and perspective in the decision-making process. We've got a state-of-the-art ballpark under construction. And now an energetic, winning young manager to help us drive the culture here. We are all going to grow together. We are all going to win together."

If you like, you can argue all winter long about how and why they got here, but the biggest factor is it's the natural cycle for any team not blessed with a $200 million payroll to eventually age out of their window of opportunity. And once that happens, it's time to frame a new window.

As the new job-site foreman, Woodward would prefer to talk specs on the window than worry about what went wrong with the old one. He's going to talk about "growth."

Expect it to be a popular word from the new manager.

"I've hammered on it for a while," he said of the subject Monday. "I'm going to grow. I'm going to grow quite a bit. I think that kind of resonates with the younger players. I'm growing in this job right along with them."

Woodward, as you may know by now, comes to the Rangers after three years as the Los Angeles Dodgers' third base coach, a job he'd never held before joining Dave Roberts' staff. His career is a long journey of doing things you might not expect. Until his senior year in high school, his career path was architecture, not baseball. When he was drafted, he was taken in the 54th round, which is when friends and family were usually drafted right up until MLB decided anything after 40 was kind of a waste of time. He was in awe of his childhood friend Michael Young's ability, but Woodward still reached the big leagues before Young.

You can tell he's passionate, listening to him discuss the influence his wife Erin and his late high school coach Tom Quinley had on his life. You can hear it when Woodward talks about Bobby Cox calling him into his office after being left off the lineup card for a young Martin Prado or about how Tommy Lasorda discussed caring about players.

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You can see why he overcame odds so often to have a decade-long career. At every juncture, he's learned. At every opportunity, he burned to play. At every challenge, he's risen up and grown.

And now for the big question: Exactly what constitutes growth for the Rangers and Woodward? In the long term, it is results-oriented, as in division and, they still hope, World Series titles. In the short term, it will be, to quote Jason Garrett, about the process.

Woodward isn't about to put ceilings on his team, but he is going to focus more on the process -- improving defensive preparation and play, getting full-team buy-in to a mature two-strike hitting approach, among others -- than it is about results.

"There is growth to be had on the major league side," Daniels said. "But growth can come in a lot of different ways. It is a critical time for us to get everything aligned."

On the playing side, that means allowing players to make mistakes and learn from them. If they have the proper thought process in place, they will only get better. The same goes for a first-time manager.

"I want to create a culture here where everybody can flourish," he said. "I want us to get a little better every day. When you witness that on a daily basis, when guys buy into that, it's amazing. It takes time. I can't wait to see that happen here. I can't wait to gain their trust."

He started by going from a day of media introductions to taking all the Rangers players currently in town to dinner on Monday night.

And why not?

There is a lot of growing to be done. For the players and for Woodward. The sooner he starts on the project, the sooner the growth comes.